Releasing persistently low-achieving school names – Good thing or not?

– Commissioner of Education sends confusing signals

During direct questioning about House Bill 176 from members of the House Education Committee, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday named 12 schools that would be identified as “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools” if the bill’s ‘Race to the Top’ rules were in force today.

Dr. Holliday really had no choice but to release the names in this meeting, which took place on January 7, 2010. Legislators directly asked for this information, and there was no reason not to provide it.

Never the less, the Kentucky School Boards Association reports that four days later, on January 11th Dr. Holliday apologized to the state’s school superintendents for releasing the names and vowed to “visit every one of those schools we named and apologize to those faculties.”

Then, signals flip-flopped again on Tuesday, January 19th when Commissioner Holliday was a guest on the launch show of KET’s new ‘Education Matters’ series.

During the course of this show, questions came up about how schools will be held accountable in the future. The following exchange took place.

First, Commissioner Holliday said, “We will rank all of the schools in the commonwealth by their combined math and reading proficiency scores.”

Then, show host Bill Goodman asked, “When will that begin?”

Holliday replied, “Well, it’s already begun. We gave a list of schools last week that we said – if this were in place today – here are the schools, the 12 schools, that we would be providing assistance to under the turn-around model.”

It certainly sounded like Dr. Holliday was happy about – even taking credit for – releasing the names of the 12 schools.

Listen to the KET archived version of the show starting at 44 minutes and 2 seconds into the broadcast and decide for yourself if Dr. Holliday conveys an impression that the names release was a positive event.



Even after Commissioner Holliday’s January 19th comments on KET, school administrators remained unhappy.

And, another flip-flop seems to have occurred.

On Monday, January 25, 2010 Commissioner Holliday apologized for releasing the 12 schools’ names – again – this time to officials at the Caverna Independent School District.

Caverna High School is one of the 12 schools in question. Caverna High isn’t a very good performer, with a reading proficiency rate 11.02 points below state average, a math proficiency 16.19 points lower than the state norm and 11th grade ACT scores a very disturbing 2.2 points below the state average.

Here’s what the commissioner said at a press conference following his tour of all the Caverna schools:

“Let me make it real clear upfront. No one is coming in here to close Caverna High School down. I think you’ve got a lot of the right strategies in place here at Caverna High School. We just really regret this list of schools got published ….”

I know the commissioner regularly reads this blog, and I freely admit that I am human and may be missing something here. Perhaps he can clarify what comes across to me, anyway, as mixed signals.

In any event, I think it was important for legislators and the public to know which schools were likely to be identified. That way we could see how the new RTTT-based rules would really work.

And, as I pointed out in an earlier blog, I have some serious reservations about whether this new program will focus attention on the proper schools. Without a sample list of schools to examine, that important discovery could not have been made.

I think something else needs discussion. The public schools don’t belong to school administrators. They belong to the people of Kentucky. Public schools should not enjoy the kind of secrecy and protection that some in the school system clearly yearn for.

The public needs and deserves complete information about its school system. We aren’t talking military secrets here, and there simply is no justification for withholding the information.

It’s the public’s data, and attempts to withhold it from the pubic – and from the legislature, for that matter – can adversely impact credibility of the public school system. Such secrecy has no place at this time when state and federal leaders are promising increased government transparency.

Right now, I don’t think it’s appropriate for local school administrators to put the Commissioner of Education on the spot to apologize for answering entirely pertinent and valid questions from our legislators. If I am missing something here, I hope Dr. Holliday will check in and set me straight.